Denouement: How life evolves after you retire from medicine

If you’re familiar with “A Pirate Looks at Forty” (sail on, Jimmy Buffett), then consider what follows to be “A Surgeon Looks at Seventy.” Because right about the time you read this, that number will be off my starboard side on an Aid to Navigation—a red day beacon or maybe a nun buoy. The numbers, I note, are rising, which tells me I’m heading to home port and an eventual end to the long journey.

Retirement, I’ve come to believe, is a phase, even though it feels like an event. And nothing says you can’t retire from more than one thing if you want. I’ve always liked the number seven. It was Mickey Mantle’s number when I was a kid—one we all squiggly drew on the back of our T-shirts with a magic marker to play sandlot ball. I’ve written seven novels about my beloved Jersey Shore. The average American male lives into his mid-70s. And I’m now in my seventh year of NOT being (for all practical purposes) Dr. Waters.

So, without fanfare, I will make this my final column on the subject here, as I retire from this column. I feel like I’ve said all I had to say, and I want to avoid the writerly sins of being repetitive, preachy or boring. I’ve received numerous emails and messages thanking me for articulating what was apparently on many readers’ minds. I’ve been reprinted and reposted liberally. I’ve even been trolled a time or two (which I consider a back-handed compliment). If anything that resembled wisdom came out of these musings, trust me, it was accidental. I just called ‘em like I saw ‘em.

Taking the lessons forward

What I’ve learned from penning these reflections for the past several years is that the drawing down of our lives as physicians is something that has to be continually processed and reassessed. I like to say “I never look back,” but that’s not true. I look back all the time. I just don’t ever yearn to go back. For those of you who’ve crossed the same bumpy bar, I doubt you do either. Retirement is something that evolves, because new variables are always being introduced. Health concerns, for ourselves and those we love, marriages, the arrival of grandchildren, unexpected deaths or departures—they take us in new directions, imbue us with new goals, higher hopes and different dreams.

Actuarial tables notwithstanding, if I can claw my way to 90 I’ll see my first grandchild graduate from college. So retirement gives us new things to shoot for—and hopefully, the time and means to do them. We might still find ourselves “doing the math,” but it’s not the cold calculus of our practice years, when doing one thing meant not doing another. In truth, I feel like the ciphering just might be what keeps us going. I’m hoping I’ll be a “good” 90—still cognizant, continent and convivial. With my gaze now trained primarily over the bow of my little bark, the swells seem smaller, and the winds feel lighter. I don’t leave much of a wake anymore, either. If I were certain as to what lay ahead, I’d keep writing about that. But discovering what’s past the next waypoint is part of the fun.

It has been a privilege to share my thoughts on a complicated subject—one that probably looks slightly different to each of us. I’m indebted to The DO and its Editorial Advisory Board for giving me the opportunity and the narrative leeway. I want to thank the many colleagues who left comments and the readers who reached out to me personally. Those notes meant a lot.

Writing a new chapter

In writing, the denouement is the final part of the story in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved. A fitting description of retirement, perhaps. Our medical careers have told the story. Our job now is to weave together what it all meant. Doing that lets us tell a new, albeit shorter story in the process. Pretty cool how that works, huh?

So wherever you find yourself on your plotted route, I wish you fair winds, a reliable compass and a bright star to steer by. I was a young adult in the ’70s (that number again) and although I never owned a parrot, I listened to a lot of Jimmy Buffett’s music. I never went to Paris, either, but I will sign off with a line from his wistful ballad about someone who did:

Well, some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic.

May you have a good life all the way.

Related reading:

The 3 S’s: What you must have in your possession when you retire

Approaching retirement: Asking, ‘Am I OK to keep working?’